


To See in a New Light

by ElvenMaia



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Blood and Injury, Character Study, Coping, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Gen, Head Injury, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Major Character Injury, My First Work in This Fandom, Serious Injuries, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:40:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24509296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElvenMaia/pseuds/ElvenMaia
Summary: After witnessing her little brother suffering a permanent injury that could ruin his life, Susan realizes how very fickle everything in their new world really is. A story of adjustment, acceptance, and miracles.
Relationships: Edmund Pevensie & Lucy Pevensie & Peter Pevensie & Susan Pevensie
Comments: 12
Kudos: 28





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize
> 
> Rated for semi-graphic injury and emotional turmoil.
> 
> Italics indicate thought, emphasis, or flashback.
> 
> Timeline: the Golden Age. The Pevensies are approximately in their early twenties/late teens

_Cair Paravel..._

Queen Susan pushed through the melee in the courtyard, heart a-flutter with raging worry.

Her eyes skimmed the sea of bustling figures, murmuring a quick apology to an armor-clad faun limping toward the infirmary, and calling for Peter. Her words were lost in the cacophony of clip-clopping hooves and urgent calls for a healer’s aid.

“Woah!” called a voice from below, a second too late.

Her foot slipped over the slick marble tiles of the courtyard and she was nearly swept away in the crowd streaming into the gates. Reflexes alone stayed her balance.

“Pardon me—oh!”

She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and looked down. Her velvet slippers were stained with a dark blotch, the area which she had slipped was a disturbing smear of scarlet over cream marble tiles and she quickly backpedaled to avoid a small caravan of mice as they rushed by with a stretcher, a writhing mouse upon it and only a bleeding stump where his forepaw used to be.

She covered her mouth and pushed on through the crowd, tears stinging the back of her eyes.

_Where are you; oh Peter you must be alright—_

The devastation was tragic. The returning party was nowhere near the size of the troop that had set out, and no one remained unscathed.

Peter and Edmund had led a regiment or so to drive an unruly band of daring outlaws farther into the depths of the mountains in the Northern Wilder Lands. The rabble of bandits and rogues had not proved much of a threat until recently when there had been several raids on the villages nestled in the valleys at the foot of the mountain range.

The outlaws had not really used the raids to bail out the villages possession-wise, but was more to terrorize than anything; a force eager on gathering recruits to overthrow their rule at Cair Paravel, for they had sided with the White Witch.

She lifted her heels to peer over the towering bulk of a Minotaur—there were few who were not still loyal to Jadis so few years after the war—, eyes skittering desperately for the familiar golden head and—

_Oh! There!_

“Peter! _Peter_!”

She ducked her head and squeezed through the thinning throng, pausing only to steady another wavering soldier.

“ _Peter_!” Susan called again, her voice strained with a pleading edge.

The mighty gates swung closed with a long groan and she finally broke through the crowd, appearing beside her eldest brother as he and Oreius clanked the fortifications in place with a tired droop of their shoulders.

“Peter?”

Peter turned towards her, brow twisted in anguish, mouth taut with what could only be worry or despair; she could not identify which. Whatever it was, it could not mean good news.

But it was a relief in itself to see that he was not severely injured.

She exhaled sharply and threw herself at him, crushing him into an embrace with the clank of armor as she whispered in his ear, “Thank goodness you’re safe!”

He gave her back a soft pat and she limply pulled away, feeling immediately that something was wrong.

“Su?” His voice was raspy and parched, the hollows of his eyes underlined with a deep violet swatches of sleeplessness.

The battle had been a hard one. It seemed they underestimated the sheer number of outlaws that had gathered there. Susan had already assumed that the raids were merely used to draw their army out, and then have them ambushed in the valley... but of course, she was sure Edmund would already have caught onto that—

_By the Great Lion!_

Her heart dropped like a rock in her stomach as realization washed over her like a mighty wave and brought tears to her eyes.

The familiar slight figure who usually paired with Peter was nowhere to be found.

“Peter,” her tone was wary, her worry giving her usual melodic voice a hard edge.

The young king looked to his sister, shoulders ever tense as if he knew exactly what she was going to say.

“Peter,” her she said haltingly, her voice cracking. A small pause allowed her to gather her composure enough to finish the sentence. “Peter, where is Edmund?”

He pressed his lips together and his eyes shone with tears. He bit his lip and struggled to speak.

“Peter,” her volume was rising. Oreius kept his head down solemnly.

“He’s with the healers,” he managed to croak.

Susan made a dash to the infirmary.

oOo

Edmund lay still in the white sheets, the pallor of his face was as white as death itself, though that was a comparison Susan could not bear to think about at the moment.

Lucy was already curled up next to him, the pale yellow of her dress the only figment of any sort of color on the bed.

Susan ambled over to the bedside, afraid of what she might discover. A shiver of ice rattled through her veins when she spotted Lucy’s discarded healing cordial on the nightstand. It did not match the look of pure anguish and uncertainty fixed on the young queen’s face.

A distinctive tang of herbs hung in the air. Perhaps at one point they would have produced a pleasant, unique smell, but the room was clouded with much anxiousness, causing the scent of the greenery to come off as stuffy and unpleasant.

Susan took her little brother’s hand in her own, her chest numb yet heart racing with a million questions that could not find their way out of her mouth.

She did not truly want to know and was staggering over the persistence that it would come out a time or another.

Edmund’s palm was cold and clammy and fingers limp. His face was unnaturally lifeless without his bright smile and soft eyes shining with warmth. Even the freckles dotted across his nose were invisible under the grey veil.

“He came,” Lucy paused to clear her throat, “he came earlier than the others. They sent him ahead to—to get here sooner.” The sentence hung as if she wanted to say more, but she didn’t.

Susan knew she had to speak now. An apathy had spread through her swirling mind as if in denial.

Her voice was raspy when she finally spoke. Her heart fluttered randomly in a rush of adrenaline as the dreaded question burst from her lips.

“Did the cordial not work?”

It was not the question she dreaded so much as the answer. Subconsciously, she found it hard to believe that such a thing was possible. Magic was such a fickle, uncertain thing. And she hated that feeling—that uncertainty— so.

_What is wrong? Will he live? How could Aslan permit such a thing?_ Her mind screamed. She wet her lips and shut it all out.

Lucy sniffed and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Susan watched the chestnut ends slide over the sheets. It was color. Instead of the white sheet and the white bandages and his white face— _oh Lucy speak already!_

Lucy nodded timidly, her eyes remaining downcast as she rung his hand and pushed the sheets down from his chin.

A bandage was swathed around his chest, the startling red stain previously hidden by the sheets.

“Yes,” she cleared her throat again. “Yes, the cordial worked.”

Susan exhaled shakily in a rush of breath. _Fickle, fickle magic._

She could take this no longer.

“What is the problem then?” she asked waveringly, accusingly. _How can we trust such an uncertain thing as magic?_

“He hasn’t woken up, Su!” Lucy almost shouted, her chin trembling with that cursed uncertainty. “This has never happened before!”

Susan remained silent after that.

A greyed badger waddled into the tense silence of the room, studying a yellowed sheet of parchment through the small round spectacles perched on either side of his nose and tutting to himself.

Lucy looked up from the bed, sniffing again.

“What have you found, Pengal?”

The badger looked up abruptly, twitching his little black nose and adjusting his spectacles.

“Well, Your Majesty, it um—it seems that perhaps this little,” he groped for a word, “erm, conjuration of spices and the sort might rouse his Lordship.”

Susan remained staring hollowly at the white, white, white. She firmly decided that she hated that color.

Roses and lace, blood and bandages. Suitors, duty, honor, and death. Sometimes she felt caged in by it all.

Pengal proceeded to bustle about the room, pulling jars off their shelves and pushing stools across the floor while intently studying the parchment and murmuring to himself, not sensing the intimate moment nor curbing the chorus of sound he was making.

Lucy flinched at every clink of glass and every screeching protest of the rickety stool and looked up at Susan for the first time, the barest inklings of a smile on her face at the creature’s concentrated antics.

Susan gave her a smile of the like in return, exiting her hollow stupor.

“Yes, yes, yes, well I suppose this will do, yes. This should work; I do not see why it wouldn’t,” the badger interrupted his own mumblings with a huff, “then again, I do not understand why the cordial did not bring him to the light.” Susan involuntarily stiffened at the mention of the potion. “Hmm.” He absently scratched the back of his neck and padded over to the door, bumping into the stool with an ‘oof!’ and unsettling his little lenses.

Lucy covered her mouth and smothered a small chuckle and turned to Edmund as if to share her mirth with him but stopping short at the white, white, white. She frowned and brushed a few tangled locks from his forehead as if mourning the usual honeyed bronze of his skin.

Pengal straightened himself and bustled out the door, murmuring something about foreign spices from Calormen.

Peter chose this moment to enter, pretending to not notice the battered remnants of blood-stained armor thrown in the corner.

His brow was furrowed and lips pursed as they were when he was concerned as he made it over to the bedside.

“He has not woken.” The statement was as sullen and grey as the weariness that hung on his shoulders. His hair was still damp and smelt of the bath oils he favored. His shirt was a simple white cotton piece that he had somehow managed to rumple on its way from the wardrobe to the private infirmary. Susan winced at the choice of color.

“No,” Susan offered to fill the silence.

“I don’t understand,” Lucy’s small voice floated up from the hair curtaining her bowed head. She sniffed again and wiped at the corners of her eyes.

Susan often wished she had her sister’s warm, soft heart, but could not find the wish to be genuine when buried under the rose and satin and blood and walls of duty that was set over her face in a stoic mask. It was all she could do to appear collected, when in truth doubt plagued her like a cold winter.

“Why has he not woken?” Lucy finished, glancing dishearteningly at the leather-bound cordial on the nightstand. But instead of coming off as accusing, she came off as fearful, with a free vulnerability that made Susan wince. Lucy the Valiant indeed. She was not only strong in spirit but unafraid to display a show of weakness, (though it was only classified as a weakness when taken from the High Queen’s perspective).

But is that not what Aslan had said?

‘ _The gentle of heart are able to freely unleash the wells of their nurturing love,’ he had said while they had lay in the wispy grass and glowing sun, watching Lucy prance with a myriad of squealing little fauns, “You have this nurturing love deep within your heart, Susan. Have faith, and you will fill all those who need it. Have faith, my gentle Queen.’_

Have faith? Faith in what? Faith in this fickle unseen force that failed to revive her brother—?!

“Aslan must have a purpose for all this,” Peter said, settling in a chair beside Lucy and allowing her to lean on his shoulder. They were scared for what this new unknown may mean for their brother.

Susan almost scoffed aloud. Ever was Peter the one to be strong and offer reassurance. The answer was always the same: Aslan must have a reason for _this_ ; he will help us get through _this_!

 _Well?_ Where was he? Her brother—a king, no, a young boy Aslan had hand-picked— could very well be dying, and where was he? _Nowhere_!

“What happened, Peter? During the battle,” Susan’s gaze had gone dull again, getting lost in the white and burying her turmoil with duty.

Peter had taken Lucy’s hand and for the second time Susan wished she had her sister’s pure openness that allowed her to be comforted. Rather, let it show that she needed to be comforted. Susan, of course, remained standing where she was.

_Susan the Gentle indeed! Do you mock me, Aslan?_

The accusation was half-hearted. She could not think of his deep rolling voice and soft, consoling eyes that wrapped her in a warm cloak of that comfort she so longed and remain bitter. She would not admit that she needed him.

_Have faith..._

Peter shook his head, eyes faraway and lost in remembrance.

“We underestimated their numbers. They cornered us into a valley and we were overrun.”

His face was pinched in regret, uncharacteristic to any who were not close to the king. Peter had the openness too. Not the constantly wide-open doors of Lucy’s heart, but well-oiled gates that were not rusted over with misuse like Susan’s were. He knew when he could let the sincerity show.

“Surely Ed would have seen it coming, at least,” Lucy said apologetically. Peter only agreed. Edmund was usually the scheme behind the regime.

Edmund was a sibling she could more relate to. He kept himself shuttered and controlled and had a quick tongue and sharp wit to answer for. He at least somewhat relied on that; on himself, on his own strength, though he would claim Aslan gifted him his quick mind when he took all the muscle and height and gave it to Peter.

She had seen, back in Finchley, what a war or injury to could do to a person. How they were changed after it. Suddenly, it was very real; it was happening to her and she knew she wouldn’t be able to bear a different person take Edmund’s place inside him over some silly kingdom or battle.

She threw a glower at the cordial. _You silly, fickle thing._

“He did,” Peter said with a sigh.

Lucy raised expectant, almost admonishing brows. “And you did not heed him?”

Peter gave an impulsive eye roll, though the playful exasperation was lost in his very real exhaustion.

“Of course I listened to him. What he did not expect was an early charge, nor their vast numbers. We were taken by surprise.”

Lucy nodded, the minute warmth in the air from their speech dissipating back into the cold silence.

Pengal shuffled through the door again, still studying the parchment and clutching a dangerous number of jars in his little paws. Peter immediately rose and relieved the badger from his teetering burden.

“My thanks, your majesty!” Pengal said with a flash of his little teeth and another involuntary wiggle of his nose. “I should have he remedy made up in a bit,” he said, waddling over to the bedside and giving his chin a scratch.

“Do you know of an explanation for all this?” Susan asked, trying her best to keep her concern in control.

Pengal turned and bustled about the shelves and racks brimming with healer’s supplies and fresh herbs and began taking various items and crushing them or adding them to a bowl he was compiling in.

“Well, his Lordship did take a rather nasty hit to his head. I conclude that he is simply exhausted and does not wish to rouse himself,” the badger paused to look at them, “less painful that way,” he said quite matter-of-factly.

An odd, unidentifiable emotion swept through Susan like a bucket of cold water.

“Did the cordial not cure him?” Lucy asked.

Pengal made his way back to the bed and began unwrapping the bloody bandages at Edmund’s chest and middle as well as one about his wrist. After the blood had been wiped away, it was visible that the wounds were sealed and were not much of a threat anymore.

Peter’s face was almost too sorrowful to look at. He would never forget the sight of his little brother strewn on the stained and trampled grass as a corpse, his slain steed lying dead almost atop him, and a broken spear shaft jutting out of his shoulder. There had been an ugly gash across his side where a sword had clashed with his ribs, which most likely happened after his wrist had been broken.

The image buzzed at him now like a pestilent fly.

“The cordial worked in most places, I see. The cordial in itself is still a rather strange wonder to me and only now am I beginning to understand it. It only heals ailments of the flesh the best it can. If there is an arrowhead stuck in your leg, it will only seal it from bleeding without removing the arrowhead, which, of course, will become considerably problematic at a later date. I suppose it is the same in this case. He is mended all around, but whatever damage has been done inside,” he tapped his temple with a neatly-trimmed claw, “remains to be treated.”

Susan was very suddenly reminded of the time she had gone to a hospital in England to deliver charity for the war-veterans. She remembered a sullen family of a mother and her two children standing anxiously in the corner for a word on the condition of a loved one. She had heard the doctors talking. His condition had been severe; logically, he hadn’t been supposed to survive.

Later, white-clad doctors had streamed in with such an air of intensity that everyone marveled at them as they passed by. Words were exchanged. A new, uncertain method of surgery had worked. Cries of joy burst out from the family and cheers followed the successful wearied surgeon.

Oh, what Susan would give to have that now.

_Fickle, fickle magic._

Pengal retrieved the bowl of the remedy he had been toiling to construct. The healer took a pinch and held it in front of Edmund’s nose.

Everyone held their breath.

No movement.

Pengal crushed it between his fingers and a few specks floated through the air.

The patient scrunched his nose and tossed his head to the side.

A loud exhale.

“Ed? Ed wake up!” Lucy said, patting his cheek insistently.

Edmund furrowed his brows with a groan and cracked his eyes open only to close them again.

Peter shook his arm. “Edmund. You must come back to us now,” he said sternly.

“Try to open your eyes for us, lad,” Pengal said, crushing a bit more of the powder into the air.

Edmund lifted a had to rub at his eyes and squinted with a twitch of his nose from the rousing scent of the spices. He blinked rapidly and remained staring up at the ceiling, passing a hand over his eyes again. He turned his head to the side, squinting as if puzzled.

“How do you feel?”

The young king lifted himself to his elbows and everyone rushed to his aid, piling pillows behind his back and pulling the coverlet up to his chin.

“I—I feel quite fine,” he said, shaking his head and pressing his eyes closed as if willing away a thought.

He continued to rub at his eyes and massage his temples, the usual jest that followed his waking nonexistent.

“Ed, what’s wrong?” Susan asked guardedly.

“Do you feel any pain, lad?”

“No, no. I am alright,” he said lightly, staring at the opposite wall with the furrowed brow of consternation. His tone suggested a ‘but’ at the end of the sentence.

“Something is not right with you. Tell us,” Lucy insisted.

Edmund squinted again, refusing to look at either of them.

“Well—“

“Well what?”

“I— I can’t _see_.”

The whole world dropped.

oOoOoOo


	2. Part 2

**Part 2**

It seemed that adjustment was difficult for all but Edmund.

It was devastating, really, but he was taking it so... calmly. It was nearly unnatural.

He had gone through examination after examination, but the news was all the same. Not enough was known in this particular area; there was no cure.

At Edmund’s request, they had gotten ahold of a tutor for Calormene to teach him ‘ _sightless reading_ ’. The mere name of it irked Susan nearly as much as the tutor did. Condescending little prat, he was. Had Edmund still had his sight, they would be exchanging eye rolls like common children over his greased, bald head.

The thought went stale. No, she would not accept it. Her little brother was not ‘ _sightless_ ’. He had more insight to put them all off. One look at an emissary, a quick screen over the reports, and he knew exactly how to handle the situation. Hardly a lie escaped his talons.

He had mentioned before that it was something having to do with their body language, who or what they looked at while they were speaking. She wondered if that sharp, innate ability of his would still be able to function with this new... turn of events.

She refused to see him as disabled. It was hard to think of him while he had been recovering, hands groping about the nightstand, his head jerking sharply at any odd sound, the uncertainty in his step. It was as if he was haunted and fearing what was about to whirl around the corner.

Lucy cried nearly every night. Peter appeared so much older.

‘The training courtyard was so empty without him,’ Peter had said, just last night, two weeks after the incident. ‘He was glorious with a blade—‘

Susan had been screaming inside. Lucy had spoken her mind when her throat had constricted with the tightness in her chest as if it was bracing against the pain of the topic.

‘No, Peter, stop,’ her voice was hoarse and she looked so very alone under the shadow of the bruises under her eyes. ‘You speak as if he is dead, but he is not. Not ‘was’. He’s here, he’s... here...’

No one had spoken after that.

Susan had heard a noise. The whisper of footfalls outside of Peter’s chambers. A cold hand had squeezed her heart and she prayed that it had not been Edmund frozen on the other side of the doorway.

But it seemed all their prayers were vain now. She couldn’t help but think bitterly that perhaps it was some stubborn scrap of magic that was preventing his recovery. She couldn’t help but glower at every passing servant as their paws or hooves clacked in the grand marble hallways beside her. After all, this had happened because of them. If Edmund hadn’t loved his people—his country—so, then perhaps he would have never ridden off to war. Perhaps then none of this would have happened.

It was foolish, wishful thinking, Susan knew. The slither of a warm figment of a voice persisted in her mind. She knew it was Aslan. She didn’t spare him an ear. He hadn’t spared Edmund’s sight.

_What I would give to have an educated doctor from the city look at him._

Susan’s train of thought was interrupted by Edmund’s glazed, unseeing smile peeking through the doorway to the meeting chamber. He looked so unbothered but for the line of pain on his brow.

Everyone fell silent as he entered. She could nearly feel the hearts of those in the meeting chamber with her wilt. Susan quickly glanced back to her little brother, knowing he felt it too. It broke her heart a thousand times over.

“Hullo...” His voice was so very small and uncertain. Uncertainty was terrifying and yet he was forced to embrace it. This was so foreign. He owned councils.

A few murmured ‘ _my lords’_ and _‘your majesties_ ’ floated around the room. Peter forced a smile.

“Come! Join us, brother!”

“I-I was merely checking if I was required to sign anything for the morrow’s meeting with the emissary from the North...”

It made sense. He was the head diplomat for foreign connections and all matters otherwise in that particular field.

Peter glanced down and slid a few documents to Edmund as he warily approached the table. Like he was the hunted rather than the hunter. This was not longer the quietly solid stride of the Just King, this was under humility; it was shame.

“Indeed. If you would sign this down here, this one at the top, and—“

“Peter.” Edmund swallowed painfully again in the shroud of silence that had fallen about the room. He held out his hand. “If you would please show me... I cannot see where you are pointing to.”

It felt like yet another arrow to Susan’s chest. If the sudden exhales in the room were anything to go by, it seemed that it was so to all present.

Peter abashedly wet his lips and took the proffered hand, repeating the directions slowly and watching, agonized, the shaky scrawl of Edmund’s hand. When he was finished, it was as if his penmanship had been injured as well by the looks of it.

“Is that all?”

An uncomfortable pause. Susan knew what he had to say, and her heart already pulsated with hurt just imagining it.

_Oh Aslan, why? What has he done?_

_Bear with me, child..._

“Ah, Edmund?” Peter’s tone was backed with resolve, his chest pushed out just a bit more than usual. It was as if he was trying to condense his strength to weather the storm. Susan smiled sadly at the attempt. She knew, that no matter how strong one may think themselves to be, they will still chip and weather away with said storm.

Edmund stopped and turned on his heel to face his brother’s voice, waiting expectantly. It looked as if he was holding his breath too. He was no fool; he knew what needed to happen.

“Edmund, as head diplomat, your presence is required at the council with the Northern folk morrow-eve...”

Edmund said nothing, merely nodded in acquiescence. He already knew. He would have to face this potential treaty with the marauders, sight or not.

_Aslan save us all..._

oOo

The sun blazed duller than was usual. Summer was fading, leaving way for the heady blossoms of the cold that would twine about the kingdom.

She found Edmund in the armory. A thin shaft of light smattered with hovering dust alighted on his face, lending his hair a distinct tinge of red. He held a dulled training sword in his hand, the other fingering the jewels studded into the crosspiece. Sightless eyes gazed reverently in the general direction of the blade. They held a longing of a beggar eyeing the king’s table.

Susan remained silently in the entrance, her own light blade in hand. Though her main weapon was a bow, she had also done basic training with a blade should the need for close-combat arise.

Perhaps it would be considered cruel to remain silent behind the back of her blind brother, but speaking felt out of place.

The pools of sunlight slithered through the long slits of the windows as the sun began to fall from the apex of noon in the wind-swept sky devoid of clouds. The vibrant lawn of the sparring courtyard glowed nearly crimson outside.

Edmund rose to his feet, his fingers tentatively testing the grip on the hilt as if he was a green cadet trembling before the breaking of a new day when he would join the king’s ranks.

He moved forward until he was but a silhouette framed in the flare of the red sun. Taking a deep breath, he sunk into a familiar defense position, lifting the sword slowly.

Anticipation buzzed in the air, setting Susan’s heart to a breathless rhythm. She counted the beats in her head.

_You are not holding a sword. Imagine an extension of your arm, weaving, cutting in a lethal, lilting song. You are swimming, weightless, every movement liquidated to match the beat of time itself._

Then he struck out. She let out a breath she didn’t know shed been holding. The sword glittered and flashed white like a wolf’s teeth snapping in a blur of deadly grace.

Overhand, the blade arched in the space with such a ferocity behind it she could almost feel the very air parting to make way. Underhand, he twisted his wrist just so in a familiar dance. A jab in to the side. He was glorious, as Peter said.

Backwards, forwards, faster, faster, hissing as it rent invisible apparitions of fears, uncertainty, helplessness. He advanced, step by step, blade gliding and—

_CRACK_!

The sword lodged itself into the doorframe, splintering the smoothed wood that held it together and sending chips shrieking away. Edmund recoiled with a cry of frustration, doubling over from the pain that undoubtedly shot through his arms under the impact.

The exhilaration in her heart sank. He hadn’t seen where he was going. Crying out would have only startled him and made it all go awry.

Susan hesitantly made a move to step forward when he suddenly lunged on the sword embedded into the doorframe and yanked it out with maddening ferocity. He drew it up and hurled it across the room, sending it skittering with clattering sparks across the worn cobbles.

She jumped instantly, making slow advances towards him as he sunk to his knees, head bowed.

“Edmund...”

His head shot up but his eyes told her that he had already known that she was there. Hot tear-tracks stained his face but he did not bother to brush them off as more fell to layer the cascade.

He rose unsteadily to his feet after that and she felt her chest clench in the silent rebuke. He was hurting too... she hadn’t seen it. No one had. Or maybe they were too caught up in their own...

A knot in her middle sized up with hurt for him. She dragged the thrown sword into her hands, savoring the warmth of the hilt and was about to offer it to him when he turned sharply away from her on his heels.

Her heart softened. He needed someone right now.

She skirted to face him from the side. He harshly wiped his face. His voice was a more of a breathy croak,

“I do not want your pity.”

Her defenses slammed right up with a tension threaded through her limbs that led to rash words she would regret.

_Susan the Gentle indeed..._

_Oh, Aslan I would call upon you now if I did not feel that you have abandoned me..._

But that was not true. Still, she felt a warm, fluttering figment at the back of her mind. It was steadying, comforting, a lifeline she dared deny was keeping her from cracking under the storm.

Every time she tried to grasp the semblance, it playfully eluded. Like the mischievous spark in the endless abyss of warm clouds in Aslan’s eyes as he danced nimbly just out of reach. It was as if he was trying to beckon a small child to a secret garden where the lavender and tiger lily soothed one’s soul as the sunlight wrapped around in a cocoon of warmth like an embrace. She wanted to go there, really. To bury her aching fingers in his warm mane and wish the entire world away.

But ever he pranced out of reach. She was weary of it. She did not want to play games for she was not a child; she was a queen. He should know that for he made her such.

Now, seeing the hurt roiling within her brother’s glazed eyes she called upon that figment and fisted it as tightly as she could without looking to see if she had caught anything. She needed it now.

“I harbor no such pity for you, brother,” she began uncertainly. He cut her off.

“Do not lie, Susan.” His voice was hoarse and strained with little fissures. She was suddenly thrown into a different world. Her hand warmed as if someone was grasping it, though it was not physically so.

He doubted too. Though he held onto Aslan’s guidance with a tenacity that belied all loyalties, even _he_ doubted. She wondered if it was wrong that the thought consoled her. That she wasn’t the only picture of perfection that was shredded inside.

It would have been amusing had the prospect not been so aching. They all danced around one another like they each had something to prove, even Lucy, in her own way. It was so so tiring. She wanted to feel home.

“Do you ever wonder, Susan,” he began forlornly, snapping her out of her thoughts. His eyes were fixed on the wavelength of the grasses outside of the armory as they swayed in the breeze.

“Why things are the way they are? Do you ever wonder if he’s really always there? I can feel him... but maybe sometimes—some things— are not worth caring...”

Her breath caught. Susan’s words flowed out before she had any chance to check them.

“Everything in this world is so fickle,” she mused. Edmund turned to her curiously.

“The passing of time, the seasons... one life fading while another grows... it is all astounding; a puzzle we could never hope to comprehend. This world... even more so. Magic sways with the wind and vibrates in every blade of grass. It brings the vibrancy to everything, I think. But with that also comes a measure of... in-clarity. Our world— _this_ world—is somewhat of a vague mystery where everything flows with the very creep of time... and beautiful as it is, I find it... mistrustful.”

Edmund bowed his head, listening and mulling over her words.

“I find that is a bit like Aslan—“ her lips resisted forming the word, but she knew what she was saying had him near her—“Aslan is somewhat of a beautiful mystery... and we do not understand, and, perhaps, it can be rather frightening. But he is there.”

Her brother nodded, brow furrowed. “We do not— _cannot_ —see the big picture, is what you’re saying, I think.”

Susan smiled tenderly. She knew not where the words were coming from. But they were consoling like her coldness towards Aslan never was.

“Everything has a reason... even if it may seem terrible at first...it will all open a door for something greater in the future.”

Edmund wrung his hands, cracking each knuckle one by one. “It does not make it much easier to bear...” he said in a small voice.

She smiled warmly for the first time in a long while. Her spring was budding over the stubborn maw of winter and she found that she was drawing closer to that semblance of home, where she was whole.

Susan leaned forward and wrapped her arms around her younger brother’s shoulders as if saying ‘ _That’s what I’m here for.’_

“Think of it as when we first came. Being parted from Mum and Da was frightening. And Ms. Mckready really turned out to be a prat,” Susan snickered and hoped she hadn’t imagined the small upturn of Edmund’s mouth, “But in the end, we made it here, and that is a happy thought.”

They were silent for several moments, tentatively savoring this new-bound trust between them.

Suddenly Edmund broke out into an absurd fit of giggles. She looked down at him questioningly even though he could not see it.

“You’ve become quite the poet, Su,” he chuckled.

She let out a satisfied breath. “A lady must know the qualities of good poetry to have a good laugh at her suitors’ feeble attempts.”

He smiled. It was small, but it reached his eyes. “Truly they are feeble in comparison to you, sister!”

They chuckled merrily, wrapped in a warm sense of solace.

oOoOoOo

**A** / **N** : *hiding* So... I didn’t abandon it... *nervous grin*. I promise it wont take that long to write up part 3!

Feedback would be much appreciated :).

**Special thanks to Scribbles for looking all this over for me!**


	3. Part 3

**Part 3**

They were silent that dinner. It was heavy and uncomfortable and unnatural, especially for this bunch of dynamic siblings.

But that is not what they were, now was it? They were solemn just as the kings and queens they were set to be...

It seemed Edmund could take it no longer. He pushed himself back from the table, leaving his plate nearly untouched.

“Excuse me, I do think a breath of fresh air this fine evening will do me well...”

Peter stood as well, his plate equally untouched. “I will accompany you.”

“No,” Edmund said, much too quickly than was polite. He looked down in bereavement before setting his jaw and lifting his head again. If Edmund were looking in the right direction, Peter would have found his glare unsettling.

Edmund sighed wearily. “I would fancy spending a quarter hour or so in solitude, if permission should be granted.”

Something in his tone of voice told Peter that the last bit was said out of irritation. Grimly, he used it to his advantage.

“I am afraid I cannot permit that...”

Near-visible panic fluttered beneath the surface of his indignant composure.

“May I ask why it is so?” he asked quietly.

Peter’s eyes were pained. He made sure to tone his voice to sound just so, to let his brother know that he hated this just as much as he did.

“I cannot put your safety at risk...”

The occupants of the room remained silent, studying either the floor or fidgeting hands. This was difficult even to witness. These new trials were harsh on their beloved royal family.

If Edmund had been any less mature than he would have lashed out, arguing that he was old enough to look after himself and didn’t need his siblings trailing him around like a pestilent nanny.

But he couldn’t protest or refuse. Because, in truth, he did need looking after. There were many things out there that would happily take advantage of the misfortunately blind king, even this close to the palace. It seemed that he was just that valuable. A mere pawn to some rueful player on a grand board.

“I do believe it would do us good to all go, we can have a nice evening off... What say you, Susan?”

“Aye, that does sound agreeable,” Susan said as she stood, watching Lucy fondly as she graciously thanked the maids and told them to pass her sentiments to the cooks.

Edmund remained downcast and led them out of the hall.

After some wandering, they decided on settling under a large oak edging a small clearing with a silver sparkling fountain. Susan sank down on the lip of the fountain and graced her fingers atop the shimmering water that was glowing with several small luminescent fish.

They stayed in somewhat of an awkward silence. Susan wistfully recalled the intimate conversation she had shared with her younger brother just that afternoon. He had collected himself well for the meal.

It seemed that Peter was about to speak to fill the silence when Edmund took it up instead,

“I’m not completely useless, you know.” He promptly huffed out a shaky laugh. Something about it told Susan that he was more reassuring himself than anyone else.

“Well of course not!” Lucy said as if it were the most ridiculous thing in the entire world.

_Ohh, bless you, Lucy._

Edmund attempted a shy smile but it came out of more as a grimace.

“I can still fight, if I had but a bit more getting-used-to!” he said suddenly in a rush. “I remember all the patterns, you know. And-and I have yet a good set of ears that will help my hindrance...!”

“Edmund...” Peter began sorrowfully, “Brother, please—“

“I can do it, Peter, I know I can! Give me a chance, I need a partner and you know me best; it will take just the smallest bit of your time—!”

And since when has Peter’s time schedule prevented you from taking part in your plans, brother dearest...?

Peter pinched the bridge of his nose and blew air out of his cheeks.

“You know I cannot... it is part of the Code... we cannot have any more injuries due to—“

Red faced, Edmund brought his hand down on the small chess-table, setting the gleaming golden characters and crystalline goblets a-chiming. He gathered a deep breath into his lungs but crushed his lip between his teeth before another word could escape.

Peter’s face said it all. Susan’s heart sank. So he had indeed heard them that night... he was much like an insecure child, even now. It was a disheartening thought.

Edmund turned on his heel and left, his stubborn chin jutting out. Susan shook her head. How similar they seemed. So beautifully bitter. So painfully proud.*

Peter stood immediately after Edmund departed. Susan’s eyes glanced warningly to him.

“He is going towards the palace. He will be safe. Let him be.”

Peter’s eyes betrayed his sorrow. “I know he will be safe...”

Lucy began to rub soothing circles into his knotted shoulders with a deep sigh.

oOo

The chamber was tense and the emissary was flighty. Peter grit his teeth. He saw explicitly every flick of the northerners fingers. Every absent whisper leaned to disclose what he dare not know to a partner. But he could not read them like script on a paper like Edmund could.

Ed...

His dear little brother was seated uncomfortably on his right. He stared uncertainly into space and did his best to rove his eyes mindlessly about the room to give some pretense of normality. Peter lost sight of why that was even necessary. It was still his sharp-witted brother seated on that throne, and it always would be, sight or no.

The council chamber was just as much of a battlefield as the concept of two armed parties marching upon each other on a grassy plain. Tongues must be sharpened and tactics executed. Precision must be wrought between opponents like the delicate dance that concealed a vulgarity that preluded every matter of war.

Even Edmund’s presence reassured him. Perhaps not enough to make up for his brother’s loss of confidence, but it would suffice...

He hoped.

The leader of the band, a weathered old Telmarine that had evidently befriended no one but an outlaw’s rigidity and roughshod temperament, spoke first.

Peter cut him right off and pretended not to notice doing so.

“I believe a just explanation is in order from your treacherous rabble to the people of Narnia...” Peter pressed, swirling a summer wine in his goblet imposingly.

The Telmarine bowed his head as if ashamed, revealing a small scar trailing from the hollow behind his ear to the tender flesh under his chin. Peter recalled running the tip of his blade over that very spot with some form of grim recollection. That is when the pleas for mercy and rambling pledges had spilled forth like a river in contrast to the small trickle of crimson that had lined the High King’s blade.

The man’s hesitance was all Peter needed to know that they were unprepared and had come to dig themselves out of their little corner on a whim. Peter was not fooled.

He could tell that he was going into the right direction by the way Edmund tensed beside him. He blinked rapidly as if straining to hear the next words before they were even spoken. His tongue flicked out to wet his lips and he could have appeared not all that different from a wolf had his teeth been sharper.

“My gracious king, we have a suitable explanation, I promise you,” the man said, glancing uncomfortably over to Edmund’s unnaturally glazed eyes. Peter cocked a brow authoritatively as if that feature of deep brooding chiseled into the younger king’s face were completely normal. Peter was glad for it; it seemed to unsettle them further, judging by their wary fidgeting.

_Buffoons, the lot of these..._

This was merely a preliminary custom. These vagabonds could prove no solid argument that would spare a single vein in their skinny necks.

“The Northern climate is harsh on us, your Majesty. Ever does the bitter wind blow through the shabby walls of our huts and blows them down with our women yet inside,” the man recited mournfully with a hefty measure of woe. The lack of real sorrow on the man’s face told Peter that this was surely predetermined.

“We were starving... we had nowhere to go but then to the nearest settlement. We came in peace but were turned away with violent scorn. We did nothing but try to defend ourselves!”

Ah, so one of those types. The type the would stand for their undeserving justification 'til someone offered them a sack of gold larger than their sense of morality.

“I hear differently,” Peter said crisply. “I heard you came blundering with hardly a proper weapon to divide amongst you and preyed on the innocent and the helpless like a panther on the doe’s young.”

“Rumors is all! Fear evolves the situation, this you must surely know and take into account, your Graciousness!”

The matching grimace on Edmund’s face told him it was just as petty of an excuse as one toddler pointing fingers at another for ‘doing it first’.

“This still does not explain why you ransacked my settlement.”

More fleeting whispers. Uneasy glanced and fiddling fingers. Something was up.

“Begging your pardon, I do not believe ‘ _ransacked_ ’ would be an accurate choice of words, your Majesty, I should think—“

“Attacked then.”

“Not necess—“

“You attacked the village,” Peter said slowly, as if reciting a thing of great importance to someone very small in mind.

The poor man looked miserable. Edmund would have laughed.

“We have a perfectly reasonable and pardonable explanation, your Majesty...”

“And I would very much like to hear it.”

“Err, we did not attack the settlement!”

This was ridiculous.

“And yet I have more than enough trusted witnesses to back my surety when I say you did.”

More glances and wary shuffling. These were signs... Edmund was straining his ears, but could only make out so much.

Peter had been doing his best to read the signs and signals from the opposing party, but simply did not catch everything to make sense of it.

It was nearly his fatal mistake.

Everyone was out of their seats within a split-second.

A familiar click, and the whizz of a feathered shaft bolting through the air. Peter was thrown backward by the impact, the chair he stumbled behind screeching over the floor. Screams rent the air and feet shuffled hurriedly.

Shouts rang over the din and the doors slammed open with a bang, the clang of armor and strangled cries mixed with jumbled orders permeated the vicinity.

Edmund was lost and in a frenzy. He could feel the warm crimson flower spreading over Peter’s kingly raiment. The image burned into the back of his sightless eyes.

Soldiers’ metallic footsteps echoed nearer along with Lucy’s hoarse shouts for them. Peter would be fine. The shaft only hit his shoulder.

Without another thought, Edmund turned and ran. People brushed past and someone grasped onto his arm, but he plunged onward.

Rabid thoughts raced through his mind.

He cursed his blindness. He cursed his lack of intuition. He cursed his inability to do anything.

Edmund didn’t know how to manage the storm raging within. Only that he needed to get away! It was _too much—_ oh.

Peter’s blood stained his hands and the knees of his trousers and he felt that it would all escape him in a scream.

Horses returned from a patrol were conveniently tacked and tethered outside the livery. Edmund blindly reached out and heaved himself into the saddle, trusting the animal to be his eyes. He pushed the horse into a run, saddened that he could not call it by name.

Up here, he could escape. He could almost fly. Up here, the wind roared over the din of shouting soldiers and clanking armor. Up here, the biting air whipped the thoughts from his mind and he loved it for that.

The leather of the reins slid from the blood in his hand but Edmund steeled his jaw and crouched lower over the horse’s withers until he could feel it’s mane whipping across his face.

The air was fresh with pending rain and he savored the thought carefully, trying to let it quell the storm of other thoughts.

He’d always loved that smell. It was when the earth came alive. When the soil let forth a soothing fragrance that felt like a song. Where the towering pines sprayed down a perfume that felt like renewal. Where the water washed the land like a mother washing her babe.

It was something he could enjoy without having to see it...

There were so many things he could enjoy without having to see them... Like the warmth of the sun on his face. The swaying rhythm of the horse beneath him. The sound of a loved one’s heart beating in a lingering embrace. The chatter in the market. The whistle of wind winding through the wispy grass in a meadow.

It felt like... Aslan.

It came to him all at once.

Aslan... was _everywhere_. In everything.

 _Everything_.

He was the reason for this life around Edmund. Every vibrating stroke of it. It was so invigorating—

Aslan was in this situation as well, though Edmund and his siblings may have found it difficult to believe. But really... he’d come to appreciate so much. He saw now, not the physical world but...

He saw. What is essential is invisible to the eye.**

Lightning shot through the air in a fizzle and a crackle that reeked of smoke. A tree snapped and was razed to the ground and before Edmund could truly comprehend anything, he was falling. Falling fast.

_Aslan give me strength—_

The world faded abruptly into the abyss with the thrum of departing hoof beats.

oOo

He was coming to slowly with a terrible ache in his head so similar to last time, it was chilling. Voices droned about him in a slur and he stirred in the bed.

The distinct scent of boiling herbs permeated the atmosphere.

Ah, the healing ward then. He should be expecting a scolding from Pengal soon enough for ending up here so soon again.

He opened his eyes. And blinked.

Once.

Twice.

Everyone seemed to hold their breath.

Edmund furrowed his brow and wrinkled his nose.

“Peter, I always told you that tunic is hideous and yet you insist on wearing it.”

Susan’s hand clapped audibly over her mouth. Lucy was sobbing. Peter let out a nervous laugh and fell to his knees near the bedside, taking his brother’s hand in his own. They were speechless.

_He can see!_

Petter found his voice first. “Edmund—!”

“No no, don’t you get all emotional now—“

Lucy threw her arms around his neck. “Edmund, oh—!”

Susan felt a fleeting warmth as Edmund met her eyes with a wry grin over Lucy’s shoulder. There was a solemness there that spoke of a sort of wisdom she hadn’t noticed before. As if he’d aged in the small span of time that he’d been blind.

A familiar image flashed in her periphery and Susan whirled to face the mirror. There was nothing out of the ordinary there, but she knew what she had seen. What she had felt.

Aslan.

A smile spread across her face. Her heart rejoiced.

_Have faith..._

“Oh, I have so much to tell you all—“

They were too busy smiling and exchanging embraces to care.

“I realized something,” Edmund insisted, his eyes darting about to capture every inch of the room. “I-I realized that a blind man can see... so much. If he knows where to look for it.”

And he was very thoughtful. None of them really understood, then.

But he was right.

_What is essential is invisible to the eye.**_

That is how Susan knew.

_Have faith, my dear one._

oOoOoOo

*yall probs heard this before but it fit here so hehe.

**Quote from Saint-Exupery, from The Little Prince. (I ADORE this book).

 **A/N:** *sobbing* I survived the semester!!! (Albeit barely but~ haha). *one trillion apologies for the long wait for this*. I had a rlly hard time with it, so feedback would be unfathomably appreciated!

**Blessings to my dear beta, Scribbles-on-Parchment! Tysm!**

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I know I should be doing other things, but this is a (kinda) plot bunny that wouldn’t leave me alone. First time writing for Narnia, so I apologize if it is not up to par. It is planned for this to be a three-part one-shot. I was hoping this would kind of add to the list of reasons that Susan will eventually stray from Narnia, so I will try my best to include things from her viewpoint. :)
> 
> Hopefully I won’t get attacked for making Ed go blind. Ah well; wishful thinking. :P
> 
> Comments and constructive criticism are appreciated, flames are not :). Enjoy!


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